We’re hot on the trail today of low-carb recipes, a repeat request from a reader who is also looking for remedies for his love for salty snack foods. “I need better substitutes that satisfy the chips and salsa, chips and dip cravings I often have.” We’ll add one more: any snacks made with oyster crackers.
The recipe that follows has been a favorite of the Mickel family since a friend brought it to their house in 1993. Sue Mickel of Hixson reported that it freezes well and is just as good reheated. “I sometimes use seasoned diced tomatoes in place of the soup,” she said.
Microwave Quick Chili Dinner
1 pound ground beef
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 cup diced green pepper
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
1 can whole-kernel corn
1 can (8 ounces) Hunt’s tomato sauce
1 can (103/4-ounce) Campbell’s tomato soup
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Break beef into chunks; place in a 2-quart nonmetal baking dish. Add onion and green pepper. Cook at high power for 4 minutes. Drain fat; break up beef and stir in spices, corn, tomato sauce and tomato soup. Cover and cook for 4 minutes longer. Add 1/2 cup cheese and stir well. Cook for 1 minute. Sprinkle 1/2 cup cheese on top. Cook for 1 minute. Let stand for 5 minutes and serve over rice, if desired.
Carolyn Williams has a certain expertise about homemade sauerkraut as a finishing touch to cabbage rolls. She wrote that when she was growing up, “my mother, grandmother and aunt got us kids together at the enamel table in the back yard and we chopped cabbage heads from our gardens, putting it in crock containers. Mom’s container was an old crock churn no longer used to make buttermilk.” They layered the cabbage with salt and let it set in a cool, dark, dry place for many weeks, checking it every few days to see if it was finished yet.
Now, Williams is making her own kraut, but using a recipe from the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving from Ace Hardware.
The next recipe came from Barbara R. Smith, who described it as “one of the best pound cakes ever.”
Marble Cake
1 cup Snowdrift or Crisco shortening
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (5.5-ounce) can chocolate syrup
Cream together shortening and sugar, then add one egg at a time. Sift dry ingredients; sift twice more.
In large bowl, add some buttermilk, then alternate adding dry ingredients, ending with remaining buttermilk, blending after each addition. Pour half of batter into greased tube pan; mix syrup with other half and pour over batter in tube pan. Mix with spoon, but not completely. You want to have a marbled look. Bake at 350 F for 1 hour 10 minutes or until cake tests done.
Laura Fine continues the chocolate cake trend with her first submission to Fare Exchange.
The Perfect Buttermilk Chocolate Cake
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup Hershey’s Cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
11/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
Preheat oven to 300 F. Lightly grease and flour a 9- by 13-inch baking dish. Sift first 4 ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix at medium or medium-high speed in an electric mixer until all ingredients are blended and smooth. Pour into baking dish and bake 1 hour. Test by sticking a knife or toothpick in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done. Cool and ice with the following frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature
8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese at room temperature
2 to 3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Using a hand mixer cream butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing. Add vanilla extract and mix well. Add powdered sugar and blend well. Spread on cooled cake.
Until next week …